Saturday, January 6, 2018

book received: Floyd Mahannah: THE BROKEN ANGEL; BACKFIRE AND OTHER STORIES forthcoming from Stark House

Floyd Mahannah is one of our Lost writers of crime fiction, as detailed in Bill Pronzini's fine introduction to this omnibus comprising one of his several novels and the apparently complete published short stories...we're told that ambition and alcoholism put paid to his career not too far into the 1960s, his handful of stories most notable in Manhunt, and reprinted in Manhunt as it went through its own tough times.

Just after the ARC of this one arrived last week, I started reading a 1964 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and damned if I didn't think I remembered one of the stories had Tuckerized Mahannah's name for one of the story's characters. But perhaps I just dreamed that, as I was reading the magazine issue into the very small hours, and put the issue down and went directly to sleep.

Lots of broken dreams in this life. Cover makes a nice companion to one of Patti Abbott's.